"Thank you, Peter, and good afternoon,
everyone. Or as they say here in Bali: Selamat Siang. It's great to
be here. This is my first visit to Bali-which, I'm sure you know, is the
western-most of the Lesser Sunda Islands, first thought to have been settled
around 3,000 BC, located eight degrees south of the Equator, with a surface area
of 5,632 kilometers, famous for its music, dance, cloth, carvings, and over 280
species of birds.

"Alright, I admit that I got all that from
my crack research staff back at New York City Hall or, as they call it:
Wikipedia.

"I just wish I had time to see all the
beautiful temples-and also to try some of that famous Bali Black Rice. But
apparently, you need to start the process 24 hours in advance. Sort of
like getting a parking space in Midtown Manhattan.

"Back in New York, Environmental Defense has
worked very closely with us in developing our city's sustainability plan-which
we call PlaNYC, and about which I'll have more to say a bit later.

"In fact a year ago, I asked Peter to be
part of our Sustainability Advisory Board. But he stays so busy all around
the globe that instead he nominated Andy Darrell, who is Environmental Defense's
regional director in New York. And Peter: I'm glad you did. Because,
frankly, Andy's even better than you are.

"Now, as Peter mentioned, tomorrow I'm
addressing the final session of the UN Framework Conference on Climate
Change. The schedule calls for former Vice President and Nobel Prize
winner Al Gore to speak as well. Yes, I will be a tough act for him to match,
but I'm sure that somehow, Al will manage. I'll be speaking for the
international organization called ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability.
And, by extension, for the 3.3 billion men, women and children-half the people
of the world-who inhabit the cities of the Earth.

"It's a tremendous opportunity and
responsibility. Because the voice of the world's cities need to be heard
here in Bali, and at all future forums where climate change policy is debated
and developed. That's not to diminish the international leadership we're
trying to encourage here in Bali or the national leadership that I'm pleased to
say is starting to emerge in Washington, D.C. Both are crucial.

"The fact that our Congress is seriously
debating cap and trade legislation shows just how far America has come in just
the last year. Enacting them would be a significant improvement on the
inadequate status quo of voluntary carbon targets. As many of you know, I
believe that there's an even better solution: A carbon tax. And I
think it's time to have a robust public debate on both of these ideas-the kind
of debate that will lead more Americans to understand why we have to take action
now.

"Action also has to come from the cities
that most directly confront rising sea levels, falling fresh water reserves, and
all the threats that climate change and its attendant air pollution pose to our
public health and our long-term futures. And because we're on the frontlines of
climate change, it's little wonder that cities around the globe are taking
action.

"London, Stockholm, and Singapore have
successfully implemented congestion pricing of auto traffic. While cities
from Paris to Delhi to one that I just left yesterday, Shanghai, are moving
forward with major, modern mass transit improvements. Chicago is
dramatically greening its streets with thousands of new trees, and Berlin is
leading the way in greening the roofs of that great city's buildings. San
Francisco, Mexico City, Copenhagen, and Tokyo: these are just a few of the
cities that are moving forward boldly. And I'm glad to say that in New
York, we're learning from them all.

"More than 700 cities, towns, and counties
worldwide also maintain an active network promoting international environmental
action through ICLEI. The world's 40 largest cities have come together in
the C-40 organization, whose meeting my city hosted earlier this year. And
although our national government has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol, some 700
US cities, representing 80 million Americans, have voluntarily agreed to meet
Kyoto targets. That includes my own City of New York. We're
committed to reducing our global warming emissions by 30 percent by the year
2030.

"That goal is at heart of our PlaNYC.
But to be quite frank with you, addressing climate change wasn't PlaNYC's
original goal. We began PlaNYC about two years ago as an exercise in
strategic land use planning-an effort to prepare our city for growth that we
expect will add nearly a million more people to our population by the year
2030. But it didn't take long for us to realize that you can't formulate
such a land use plan without thinking about transportation and you can't think
about transportation without thinking about air quality.

"You can't think about air quality without
thinking about energy and you certainly can't think about energy without
addressing the central topic of this week in Bali: Global
warming.

"Every one of these issues is
inter-connected. And so we broadened our horizon. We began to think
about a more comprehensive vision for addressing all of the city's long-term
physical - and that includes environmental - challenges. The result of
this process is an agenda of 127 detailed initiatives designed to meet ten major
goals; including creating new affordable housing and open space, responsibly
meeting our city's future energy needs, and giving New York the cleanest air of
any major city in the United States, among other ambitious
objectives.

"Something very interesting emerged as part
of the PlaNYC process. As we developed the initiatives making up PlaNYC,
we saw that almost all of them, whether they have to do with encouraging
transit-oriented housing, or improving natural drainage by greening our city
streets with one million new trees, or promoting energy conservation in homes,
businesses, schools, and City buildings:

"You name it. Virtually all of them will
also cut greenhouse gas production, and will help us meet the ambitious and
vital goal that we've set for ourselves: A 30 percent reduction in New
York City's global warming emissions by the year 2030-including a 30 percent
reduction in global warming emissions by City government itself over the next
ten years.

"Now, as I said, we expect the city's
population to reach nine million people by 2030. That growth-and the
increased energy consumption that will come with it-would normally cause our
carbon dioxide emissions to grow by 25 percent to 30 percent. So to reach
our goal of actually cutting emissions by 30 percent from current levels, we've
set out an energy conservation plan that has three principal
elements.

"The first starts from the fact that the
more than 900,000 buildings in New York City account for almost 80 percent of
the city's carbon footprint. So we're making a major push to get public
and private buildings to use energy more efficiently and cleanly.

"Under an Executive Order that I signed in
October, City agencies are taking the lead. We're committing $80 million a
year-equal to 10 percent of our annual energy costs-to reducing City
government's production of heat-trapping gases. Building retrofits will
play a big part in that effort. And just last Friday, the Climate
Initiative led by former President Clinton agreed to facilitate energy-efficient
retrofits in the more than 2,600 public housing development buildings in our
city.

"A second major source of greenhouse gases
is the power plants that generate the city's electricity. So we've focused
on replacing old and heavily polluting power plants with newer, more efficient
generators, and repowering or improving existing ones. We'll also promote
the greater use of renewable power. Last week, for example, we set new City
regulations that will make New York a leader in co-generation of power.
They'll make it easier to install these technologies in our larger commercial
and residential developments.

"By using heat that would otherwise be
vented as building exhaust, cogeneration is more efficient than our average
central power plants. Our overall goal is to take close to 11 million tons of
carbon dioxide out of our air each year by the year 2030 through such
measures.

"And third, we'll work to decrease
transportation-related CO2 emissions, most importantly by reducing the number of
vehicles on our streets and highways. That's where our proposal for
congestion pricing comes in. It would establish, on a pilot basis, an
additional fee for driving into the busiest business districts in the city
during the peak hours of the work week, and then invest those funds in badly
needed mass transit projects.

"Our Federal Transportation Department has
already made a pledge of more than $350 million to support implementation of a
plan like the one we've proposed. We'd be the first American city to
experiment with congestion pricing - and I'm very hopeful of making it a
reality. We recognize that going first is always the hardest. But
we've already made a great deal of headway on this issue.

"Congestion pricing has been endorsed by a
range of New Yorkers who-in the past-have all too often been at one another's
throats: think tanks from the left and right, organized labor and the business
community, a broad range of editorial writers and columnists in our city's daily
newspapers. People who normally can't agree on the time of day now agree that
it's time to work together for New York's future, and support this
idea.

"That's because congestion pricing-like more
than 50 of the other recommendations included in PlaNYC-won't simply affect
global warming. It will also make our air cleaner and enhance our economy
by reducing traffic congestion that costs our metropolitan region an estimated
$13 billion annually, while also financing mass transit. And such
self-interest is a big reason why cities are taking the lead in fighting global
warming.

"In recent months, I've discussed
environmental issues with mayors from London to Seattle to Beijing. And I
can tell you that the mayors of the world's cities are the great pragmatists on
the world's stage. They're interested in results, not ideology.

"That was clear to me when I hosted the C-40
conference in New York earlier this year. And to follow up, we're inviting
leaders from dozens of major cities to New York next year for a two-day
conference on global warming and air pollution. Two subjects right up Peter
Goldmark's alley. Peter: You won't want to miss it-and we'll really need
your help.

"But today, the world's focus is on
Bali. That's because people everywhere recognize that time for discussion
about whether global warming exists has passed. The science is
clear. Now it's time for action.

"Mitigating climate change won't be
easy. It will require all of us to change our ways. For example, an
important topic in Bali this week is deforestation-a serious problem that is the
main component of Indonesia's global warming footprint.

"New York, like many cities, uses tropical
hardwoods-in our case, for our extensive beach boardwalks and also for the
walkway on the world-famous Brooklyn Bridge. The physical properties of
these hardwoods make them ideal for such uses. So finding adequate
alternatives will be difficult. But we must try. And I want you to
know that I've asked my Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability to work
with the relevant City agencies, and present me, within the next 60 days, with a
plan for reducing our reliance on such hardwoods.

"Indeed, the message that must come out of
Bali this week is that governments and corporations, giant organizations and
individuals, nations in the developed world, and the developing world: all must
do our parts.

"We must work in concert toward immediate
and realizable goals, even as we recognize that achieving them will be only the
beginning of a very long effort. The world's cities will have a
critical role in that effort.

"Cities have always been our Earth's centers
of industry and invention. Now that creativity and enterprise have to be
harnessed to address the greatest challenge that humanity has ever created for
itself. The innovation that results will improve the quality of life for
people around the world, and help save the planet that all our children will
inherit.

"In New York, we presented PlaNYC on Earth
Day. And in my remarks that day, I quoted this Kenyan proverb: 'The
Earth was not given to you by your parents; it was loaned to you by your
children.' And now, I think all of you would agree - it is up to us to
return the earth to our children in better condition than we found it.
Thank you, and may all your hard work pay off in these final days of this
historic conference.